Brody Stevens dead

[up_the_hampipe]

Very shocked to hear about this. Apparently suicide, which just quadruples the shock. Brody Stevens was one of those comic's comic types, unique, silly, clever, criminally underappreciated. Go check out his clips if you're not familiar.

[robotam]

No! (This is a play on Brody's famous catchphrase "yes!" Also just an acknowledgment that this is fucking horrible).

[gmoney]

Really hit me in the gut this. I can't even explain why he made me laugh so much, which is why I thought he was so good. I think I first heard of him on an episode of Who Charted and he was a complete hurricane of intense nonsense. Seemed genuinely lovely too.

[up_the_hampipe]

Twitter has been quite devastating tonight with all the comics that were close with Brody.

To keep it light, here's a nice example of his rapid-fire nonsense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9jjSpWcoEg

[the]

^{For a moment there I honestly thought you meant Steve Brody, Armando Iannucci's barber}

[Bennett Brauer]

Twitter has been quite devastating tonight with all the comics that were close with Brody.

To keep it light, here's a nice example of his rapid-fire nonsense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9jjSpWcoEg

Doesn't include his "I'm very intense - I get BO taking a shower" gag, which is one of my favourites.

Seemed a sensitive sort, despite appearances.

[EOLAN]

Well I miss his baseball touring updates on Facebook. Funny lively comedian who helped me into my earwolf and podcasting world . Knew he has depressant problems and hope he found his peace.
Thanks for the laughs and joy you gave.

[Noodle Lizard]

Fuck.  I absolutely loved Brody.  Probably my favorite LA comic, used to go and see him do the Kinison spot at the Comedy Store all the time, even got to know him a little bit and ended up living across the street from him the past couple of years.  I suppose it's not especially surprising, but I'm utterly gutted.  He was a wonderful man.

[up_the_hampipe]

Fuck.  I absolutely loved Brody.  Probably my favorite LA comic, used to go and see him do the Kinison spot at the Comedy Store all the time, even got to know him a little bit and ended up living across the street from him the past couple of years.  I suppose it's not especially surprising, but I'm utterly gutted.  He was a wonderful man.

I knew when I saw you posted that you'd have a personal story about Brody, but wasn't expecting him to be your neighbour! Got any stories?

[Moribunderast]

I literally just said "No, no, no, no, no"when I saw this thread. Awful. Shocked and teary. I loved his TV series and just him in general. This is fucked.

[Noodle Lizard]

I knew when I saw you posted that you'd have a personal story about Brody, but wasn't expecting him to be your neighbour! Got any stories?

A bunch of small interactions over the years, always entertaining.  I used to see him perform whenever I could in my first couple of years here, having fallen in love with his performance on a Neil Hamburger bill.  I'd honestly never seen anything quite like it, and it just clicked for me - completely unique in a pretty stagnant sea of stand-ups here.  I tried to take pretty much everyone I knew to see him.  He's also the only comedian I saw make a fully-Neil Hamburgered Gregg Turkington break character and die laughing, which can't be an easy feat.

I couldn't say we were friends, but he began to recognize me at shows, and by happenstance I moved to a new place and would see him often walking around, Periscoping, or just sitting alone in the coffee shop across the street.  He'd always mistakenly call me Patrick for some reason, ever since 2013 or so (I stopped correcting him after a while).  If you really want to deep dive, you can see him bumping into me on a few of his Periscopes walking around the neighborhood over the last two years or so.

He was a pretty intense person (he got BO in the shower), there really wasn't much difference between his on-stage and off-stage persona.  Very kind and good-natured, but sometimes it was as if he wasn't totally there - his eyes would be kind of glazed over.  I imagine that was something to do with his constantly-shifting meds regimen, which he talked about a lot.  He started smoking pot more frequently, which I don't think helped him.  The last few times I saw him at the Comedy Store (well over a year ago, sadly) he'd come off and complain that his set went terribly, blaming it on the pot.  Really, I'm not sure I ever saw him have a bad set.  Bad audiences, sure, and I suppose his act relies largely on audience energy, but I think he took it very personally when people didn't seem interested.  That on-stage angst was pretty genuine, I think.

I might also mention - and this is just a personal opinion - but I think a lot of other comedians in the scene were pretty unkind to him/about him, especially the lower-level young ones.  They talked about and treated him a bit like a special needs kid, relentlessly shouting his catchphrases at him, sniggering all the while.  Always felt a bit like bullying behavior to me.  He never seemed bothered by it, but I can't imagine he was completely oblivious.  Could be total conjecture on my part, of course they all knew him far better than I did.

By the way, if you can still find it, the original HBO run of his biographical/documentary series "Enjoy It!" is fantastic stuff.  Comedy Central picked it up and kind of ruined it with over-the-top zany setpieces, and it became far too self-aware, and sadly in the process the original HBO version is hard to find, but I can't recommend it highly enough if you can find it.  I think that was the closest he got to "fame", but it didn't quite pan out.  He also released a special from one of his Comedy Store Kinison spots, which is good, but doesn't quite capture the essence of being at one of his shows.  You're better off listening to some of his podcasts or Periscopes from the Comedy Store.

I hate writing about him in the past tense, and can't believe I'll never get to see him perform again.  This one hit hard.

[up_the_hampipe]

That's fascinating stuff. I'd give you karma if that was still a thing.

I can see what you mean about how other comics may have treated him, it would make sense. I hope he had some close friends that were looking out for him, but from what you describe (and what I assumed about him already) I can picture him as quite a lonely person, as his peers have drifted away. Similar to Dave Attell in some ways.

[Noodle Lizard]

That's fascinating stuff. I'd give you karma if that was still a thing.

I can see what you mean about how other comics may have treated him, it would make sense. I hope he had some close friends that were looking out for him, but from what you describe (and what I assumed about him already) I can picture him as quite a lonely person, as his peers have drifted away. Similar to Dave Attell in some ways.

You can see examples of it pretty much any time he was on one of those Deathsquad podcasts, or with a few of the people he had on his podcast/Periscope.  I'm not sure what happened to his relationship with Zach Galifianakis, who pretty much created his Enjoy It! show and promoted him hard whenever he could, but they seemed to part ways a few years ago.  I know he was good friends with Kevin Lee Light (Hollywood Jesus), who also sadly died a year or so ago.  I think a lot of people were very fond of him (as you can see from the huge outpouring of mourns from Twitter, sadly more notoriety than he ever got in his life), but probably a bit preoccupied with their own careers to spend much time with someone that "volatile", I suppose.

[up_the_hampipe]

I seem to recall Zach Galifianakis expressing some level of disappointment in Brody, that he didn't really pull his finger out during the making of that show? Think it was on a Greg Fitzsimmons podcast. Brody was also bitter about how it panned out, so there might have been a rift. I might have imagined this whole thing, but I'm sure I heard Zach say something negative about that experience, at least.

[Sin Agog]

Enjoy It!, the unfucked with version, is maybe my favourite of all these docu com things.  I always sensed his relentless motivational talk masked something darker (well, it's not like he ever tried to hide it), but didn't expect this.  We should always remember to keep tabs on people we haven't heard from in awhile.

I think I first encountered him on The Big 3 podcast (I know the relentless bullying of a brain-damaged racist doesn't fly nowadays, but it's still my favourite pod) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGNfn3Db_QM , and dived in from there.

[sevendaughters]

the first one is online - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETjxxKv4VSw
loved his work, found him on the Effin Funny thing online, saw he was connected and always expected he'd slowly find his way to more lucrative work. i guess not. and i doubt it would have made a difference even though his work did seem to engage with that.

in fact all six are online if you go into his uploads but some seem to be blocked by Viacom.

[lankyguy95]

So sad. Just went to watch his last Periscope from over a week ago and pretty much the first thing he spoke about was adjusting to being back on Lexapro.

[Noodle Lizard]

So sad. Just went to watch his last Periscope from over a week ago and pretty much the first thing he spoke about was adjusting to being back on Lexapro.

The final ten minutes or so are heartbreaking in hindsight, where he talks about other younger comics becoming more successful and not wanting to be forgotten, wanting a relationship etc.  It's really fucking grim.

[up_the_hampipe]

He loved Periscope so much that he'd sometimes live stream his Comedy Store sets on there https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfDxWWEhJJc

[up_the_hampipe]

More Brody content: Comedy Central have posted his full Half Hour episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugGN1Mf3014 and his full Meltdown set (less than 5 mins but still something I haven't seen) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYFCTND-r3g

"Come on, you've gotta give me a chuckle on CADENCE ALONE!"

[Noodle Lizard]

Figured I'd share a clip from a few years ago when he approached and decided to interview me (or "Patrick", as he called me) after a show at The Comedy Store on his Periscope.  I was very drunk, and not quite expecting the interview, but it's the only thing I have saved.

https://streamable.com/utblt

[Mr Faineant]

I only ever saw Brody once, and it was at the Oddball Comedy Festival. He wasn't in the line up, but there was a stage setup outside, alongside the food vendors, and he was working there before the gates to the venue opened. I thought he was terrible...some really shit stuff he was spouting, and I suppose it was in the worst possible context for him. My wife and I would joke about each other being his biggest fan, and shit like that. I never really heard about him after that, so I'm sort of blown away about all these stories and tweets about him. I guess I was dead wrong, and he was something special. I will now go and dig through what I can find of his work. Sounds like he was a really nice, but troubled, bloke. How sad.

[Noodle Lizard]

I only ever saw Brody once, and it was at the Oddball Comedy Festival. He wasn't in the line up, but there was a stage setup outside, alongside the food vendors, and he was working there before the gates to the venue opened. I thought he was terrible...some really shit stuff he was spouting, and I suppose it was in the worst possible context for him. My wife and I would joke about each other being his biggest fan, and shit like that. I never really heard about him after that, so I'm sort of blown away about all these stories and tweets about him. I guess I was dead wrong, and he was something special. I will now go and dig through what I can find of his work. Sounds like he was a really nice, but troubled, bloke. How sad.

I think it really depends on the context where you see him - I can't imagine Oddball or warm-up in general was the best arena for him, even though that's kind of where he "made his name".  There's a clip of Jennifer Aniston shutting Chelsea Handler up before an interview to congratulate him as "the warm-up guy".

But yeah, he's really hard to "sell" to someone without being in the right place at the right time.  Anyone I took to see him at The Comedy Store fell absolutely in love with him, though any clips or entire sets I've shown people on video have not landed at all.  It helps to realize that he doesn't really do "bits" - it's almost always stream-of-consciousness ranting, floating around maybe a total of 10-15 pre-prepared "jokes".  Very difficult to explain.  I'd recommend watching the HBO docuseries, if you can.  That's about as close as I've seen to an accurate portrayal of him and his work.

[up_the_hampipe]

Figured I'd share a clip from a few years ago when he approached and decided to interview me (or "Patrick", as he called me) after a show at The Comedy Store on his Periscope.  I was very drunk, and not quite expecting the interview, but it's the only thing I have saved.

https://streamable.com/utblt

That's great that you have that documented. I want that shirt.

[beanheadmcginty]

Body Stevens more like.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Figured I'd share a clip from a few years ago when he approached and decided to interview me (or "Patrick", as he called me) after a show at The Comedy Store on his Periscope.  I was very drunk, and not quite expecting the interview, but it's the only thing I have saved.

https://streamable.com/utblt

You're a very handsome man but you need to lose that beard.

[Funcrusher]

You're a very handsome man but you need to lose that beard.

You're allowing the man bun?

[Small Man Big Horse]

I am, it turns me on.

[up_the_hampipe]

What's the deal with Enjoy It? I'd only seen clips of it originally, but people seem to recommend the HBO version over the Comedy Central version, although they use a lot of the same footage? I'm a little confused by the differences. Also can't find all of them online anywhere.

[Brundle-Fly]

Thanks for sharing all this, Noodles. I have never heard of Brody Stevens until this thread and will now investigate. Always late to the party.